The present embodiments relate to shear wave velocimetry. Ultrasound may be used to detect a shear wave in tissue. Shear is a viscoelastic property of tissue. The shear wave velocity or shear characteristics derived from the shear velocity may assist in diagnosis, such as indicating the health of tissue.
In shear wave velocimetry, acoustic radiation force is used to excite a region of interest in soft tissue. This excitation produces shear waves that are tracked at laterally offset positions. In an ultrasound system without parallel-receive capabilities, these shear waves are tracked by transmitting multiple excitations for sequentially generating multiple shear waves and superimposing the recorded response at various laterally offset positions.
Shear wave images may be generated. A characteristic of the shear wave in the tissue is determined for different spatial locations. An image of the characteristic as a function of space is generated. A large number of transmissions and receptions are used to estimate shear wave information in a large region, resulting in a slow frame rate. Multiple shear waves may be sequentially generated to determine the shear velocity any one or more locations. The number of transmissions and receptions may be reduced by forming multiple receive beams in response to each transmission. However, expensive or complex hardware capability is needed for forming multiple receive beams in response to a transmission.